1984 Singles # 10 Orange Juice

'Tonight's headline act are Glasgow darlings Orange Juice wuth support from Wild Swans and Mick Head's Pale Fountains. Introducing myself to Orange Juice frontman Edwwyn Collins I politely ask if it would be possible for me to move hust one of their guitar amplofiers a foot ti the right, just for the half hour that his support acts are on, Wuth three bands playing tonight, space onstage is severely limited. 

'No,' Edwyn replies frostily. ' You can't.' Hmmm. Not quite the playful kitten portrayed on his record labels then.'

Paul Simpson Revolutionary Spirit

Are you ready kids? We're getting there. It's getting on to mid February and we're coming to the countdown for the Top Ten. Of a chart that doesn't matter or even exist. Except perhaps in my head. And we start that Top Ten countadown.... with.... Orange Juice.

Does it matter whether Pop Stars are nice? Not at all. Why should it? Pop stars have one responsibiity and one only and  that is to inspire. To do something we can't do. Or inspire us to try. I heard a story about one of the Pop Stars yet to come on here who went in to a bar one evening off his head and smashed someone else's head brutally down in the bar. And then walked out.

Does it make me like this person. No it doesn't. Does it make me want to meet them? No it doesn't. Does it make me want to stop listening to their records. Of course it bloody doesn't. In some ways these Pop Stars are their records. The gigs they play. And the things they say in the music papers.

Edwym Collins is one of the best Pop Stars these isles or anywhere else ever had. In Orange Juice he only really had one hit. As a solo artist he had another one. But there has never been anyone quite like him and there never will be. Cue the record. One of his best.